


Because memories never end

by prinz_charlie



Category: We Are The Tigers - Allen
Genre: (:, F/F, Fluff, a few tears because, puppyyy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-12-07 19:21:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20981063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prinz_charlie/pseuds/prinz_charlie
Summary: Kate and Eva adopt a puppy and Kate remembers a few things





	Because memories never end

Eva grinned at the puppies and then at Kate, who was watching them. There was this sparkle in her eyes, Eva only got to see on special occasions. Kate looked up, smiled at her and then back at the puppies.

“They’re all so cute”, she beamed.

The owner next to them grinned and let her gaze wander back to the puppies, who were playfully wrestling, crossing her arms in front of her chest in a proud way.

“They really are”, Eva chuckled, squeezing her girlfriend’s hand.

She loved seeing Kate this way. Just the idea of getting a puppy, now, that they had moved into their own apartment and settled in at college, had made her eyes sparkle and she hadn’t been able to stop talking about it ever since.

Now, that the day had finally arrived and they were at the shelter, Kate couldn’t seem to contain the joy she felt.

The owner smiled at them again. “Do you want to go in?”, she asked, pointing at the fenced area where the puppies were playing, and Eva noticed Kate’s eyes sparkling even more.

“Can I?”, she asked, and the owner nodded.

“Of course.”

Eva felt Kate pressing a quick kiss to her knuckles and then letting go of her hand. She went in and was immediately surrounded by puppies. They were jumping up and down, sniffing at her legs and trying to get her to play with them.

Eva let out a laugh at Kate's utter look of joy and clapped her hands over her mouth when the pups let out adorable barks.

Kate looked at her in a look of complete bliss and sat down, immediately being greeted by a puppy sitting down on her lap. She stroked his brown fur and when it tried to get the red ribbon around its neck off, Kate let out a laugh.

“Which one do you want?”, Eva asked, and Kate shrugged.

“I don’t know, there’s so many!”

“Are you living together?”, the owner now asked, and Eva nodded.

“Yeah, we just moved in. Even scheduled our classes so at least one of us is always home”, she explained.

The owner nodded. “That’s great, they need a lot of care”, she said, nodding into to the direction of the puppies.

Kate nodded. “We know, that’s why we did it”, she said absentmindedly, pulling a puppy with an orange ribbon around its neck onto her lap and laughing as it licked her face. Eva didn’t know how her girlfriend managed to do it, but somehow, she was holding every puppy at once.

Kate’s gaze wandered around again and a little pup with dark fur that had been standing away from the others clumsily toddled towards her. She reached out a hand to catch it, before it fell, and it immediately cuddled into her hand, letting out a little bark.

Eva could practically see Kate melting at it.

“Look at this pal”, she beamed, stroking its fur. “Look! Its muzzle!”

The owner chuckled. “She’s one of the two girls.” She pointed at another dog with a light blue and green ribbon around its neck. “That’s the other.”

Kate’s gaze followed where she had pointed and while absentmindedly stroking the fur of the puppy in her lap, she reached out her hand for the one the owner had just pointed at. The golden retriever puppy immediately toddled towards her and cuddled into Kate's hand, looking at her through big trusting eyes.

Eva grinned, when it tried to jump over Kate’s hand and while Kate was busy petting all the other dogs with her right hand, she kept the other one outstretched for the golden retriever. She pulled it onto her lap.

“You want that one, right?”, Eva asked chuckling and Kate looked at her.

“Look at its paws!”, she beamed. “Look, she… her eyes! She’s so cute!” She tickled its belly and grinned so wide, Eva thought her girlfriend’s face might break.

“You want that one”, Eva stated, and Kate nodded.

“Look… the paws, they’re so little!”

At this moment Eva felt like _she_ might melt from the look on Kate’s face. It had been a long time since she had seen her girlfriend smiling like this and the fact, that puppies could have this effect on her, made everything even cuter.

“Can we take this one home?”, she asked, and the owner nodded.

“Sure”, she chuckled. “Do you want to do the paperwork together or…?”

Eva looked at her girlfriend, who was playing with the pup and tickling its tummy and letting it lick her hands clean, and she shrugged. “I’m going to do it. She only needs to sign, right?”

The owner nodded.

“Great.”

* * *

Their car came to a halt and Eva got out of it, opening the car door for Kate.

“She fell asleep”, Kate beamed and pointed at the pup in her lap. It was still wearing the ribbon and was now taking deep breaths, looking a little like a polar bear baby. Its fur was golden, nearly white and fluffy.

Eva laughed a little and smiled at the pup. “She _does_ look like an angel. Do you want to carry her upstairs?”

Kate nodded, and they went inside, Kate holding the pup as carefully as possible in her arms, while they were climbing up the stairs to their apartment. Eva opened the door for her, and Kate thanked her with a kiss. 

Kate went to the small couch and sat down, stroking the pup’s fur.

“Did you think of a name yet?”, Eva asked, and Kate shook her head.

She continued stroking its fur, sometimes softly tickling its neck.

“No, not yet.”

Kate only looked up for a short second, before returning her gaze to the puppy and smiled briefly at Eva, when she sat down next to her. There were a few minutes of silence - both of them were busy beaming at the new addition to their family.

“Now I have a new way to convince Frank not to come here”, Kate chuckled, thinking of her brother.

Eva raised an eyebrow and laughed a little. “Is he allergic?”

Kate nodded. “Yeah, he’s incredibly allergic. He can’t even be near a dog for longer than a minute before he can’t breathe anymore.” Kate looked up and grinned.

“Does that mean we won’t have to expect him randomly showing up whenever he’s in the city anymore?”, Eva laughed, and Kate nodded.

“Yeah, finally.”

Her brother had always visited them, when they had still been living in a dormitory, to tell them about all kinds of things. Sometimes his job, sometimes the best new place to go out to. And even though it had been nice, it had grown to be exhausting after a certain amount of time. 

They fell into a comfortable silence.

Kate got lost in the rhythmic circles her hand stroked onto the pup’s fur and her mind wandered. She smiled a little.

The first time she had thought of getting a dog had been in kindergarten. She had seen a man that had brought his dachshund to the park and was playing with it.

It was also the same day she and Chess had spoken for the first time.

An all too familiar pain spread in her chest at the thought of her best friend, but she couldn’t contain the smile at the memory.

_“That’s a flat-dog”, Kate said proudly._

_“What’s a flat-dog?” Chess looked at her confused, while she was continuing to build the sandcastle she had been working on, ever since she had convinced Kate to join her in the sandpit._

_Kate pointed at the dog. “That. Don’t you see how long and small it is? That’s a flat-dog!”_

At that time Kate had been confused and had later asked her mother, whether these dogs were really called flat-dogs or not. Her father had rolled his eyes at her and had told her, to read a book for once in her life.

Now, Kate smiled at it. She couldn’t help it. Never in her life would she have thought that the person, she had told about flat-dogs, would eventually grow to be her best friend.

Eva frowned at her. “Did something happen?”

Kate felt that she was still smiling and shook it off. “No, just had to think of something.”

Eva nodded understandingly and kissed her swiftly, murmuring a short "Ok", before getting up. “I promised mom to call her”, she said pulling her phone out of her pocket. “It won’t take long, I promise.”

“Ok”, Kate smiled gently. “Say hello to her for me.”

Eva promised to do so, stroked the puppies head for a last time and then went to their bedroom.

Kate’s gaze dropped to the pup in her lap again and she smiled.

“Chess would’ve never let you go”, she told it. “She would’ve spent every spare second with you and would’ve gone for long walks and talked to you and played with you.”

The pup continued breathing the way it had before and rolled around in Kate’s lap, repositioning its head.

“You’re so incredibly cute”, she laughed a little, to forget how wet her eyes had gotten. “Chess was a friend of mine, you know. And she loved dogs just as much as I do.”

The pup cuddled deeper into Kate’s lap, placing one of its small paws right on her thigh.

Kate melted at it and felt her eyes glazing over. “We would’ve never let you go. We would’ve always been there for you.”

She heard Eva greeting her mother from the other room and smiled a little. “But, you know, Chess isn’t here anymore”, she explained gently. “She’s gone. But we’re not alone.”

At that moment the little furball in her lap let out a silent "Woof" and opened its eyes. Kate smiled at it and wiped at her eyes. “Hey”, she smiled. “Slept well?” The pup looked around as if it was trying to figure out where it was and then looked back at Kate. It let out a "Woof" again and Kate chuckled, gently tickling it behind its ears.

“Eva and I will always be there”, she promised, swallowing hard.

The eyes of the pup were deep and trusting.

“Hey, is everything ok?”, Eva asked, putting her phone away and walking towards Kate.

Kate looked up and quickly nodded, wiping at her eyes. “Yeah. Look, she woke up.”

Eva sat down next to Kate. “She looks like a polar bear”, she chuckled, stroking the pup, that now clumsily crawled off Kate’s lap and walked over to Eva. "And her fur's fluffy like a cloud." 

Kate laughed a little. “Yeah… Do you know what you want to name her yet?”

Eva shook her head. “We should’ve really planned this through a bit more”, she then chuckled. “Do you think we’ll come up with a name until we have to take her to dog grooming school?”

Kate laughed a little, stroking the pup. “I sure hope so.”

They fell silent. 

_“I want to name my dog Lassie”, Chess said. “Because of the cool dog on TV.” She looked up from the sandcastle. “And then we’re going to play every day and we’re going to cuddle and we’re going to be the best friends.”_

_“Can I be Lassie’s friend, too?”, Kate asked and put the shovel, she had used to dig the moat around Chess’ castle, away._

_Chess nodded. “We’re going to be her best friends.”_

"Do you know, why I wanted us to adopt a dog so badly?", Kate broke the silence and Eva looked at her.

"I thought you just really liked them." 

Kate laughed a little and nodded. "Yeah, that too. But there's another reason."

Eva waited for her to continue and Kate took a few breaths, before doing so. 

“We promised each other, that we would get a dog”, she said, but it came out as a whisper. Small tears were welling up in her eyes. Eva looked at her, but Kate quickly wiped the tears away on her own. “We promised, that we would move in together and get a dog”, she looked up into her girlfriend’s eyes. “Chess and I.”

Eva’s expression immediately softened, and she lay an arm around Kate’s torso, instinctively pulling her closer.

“Oh, Kate”, she murmured gently.

“I know”, Kate laughed waterily. “But… I just remembered. When we were freshmen, we promised each other, that we’d move in together and adopt a puppy.”

The pup was now sitting in Eva’s lap and looked at Kate through big eyes.

Kate let out another watery laugh. “And Chess used to say, that she would get our dog all kinds of different toys and leashes, but she would definitely buy leashes in her favorite colors. A blue one for herself and a green one for me.”

She looked down at their dog and then at Eva.

“She’s got a green and blue ribbon”, she whispered, her fingers softly touching the ribbon. Kate let go of a watery chuckle. “It’s blue and green.” She shook her head, not quite capable of believing it.

Eva wiped away a tear that was escaping her and Kate smiled at her thankfully. “I’m never going to forget it, right?”, she asked with little hope in her voice.

Eva smiled a little. “I don’t think so.” She put an arm around Kate’s torso and pulled Kate a little closer.

“I knew it”, Kate murmured. “It was the first day we met, and we were already planning on getting a dog", she then remembered, looking up at her smiling girlfriend and then at their dog, who was looking at her and cuddling into both of them. “She wanted to name it Lassie.”

“Like the TV-show?”, Eva chuckled, and Kate nodded.

“Exactly like that one, yeah.” She looked up at her again and slightly bit her lip. “I still miss her.”

Eva gently pulled Kate even closer. "I know." Kate let the tears, that had been building up, fall and found comfort in her girlfriend’s embrace. Their dog had already fallen asleep again. 

“She doesn’t look like a Lassie, though”, Eva noted pointing at their dog and Kate nodded.

“Yeah, she really doesn’t.” She hesitated for a moment and wiped the tears from her cheeks, Eva catching one of them as well. She smiled at her.

“Would it be very cliché of us to name her Chess?”, she laughed waterily.

“Well, she already has a ribbon with Chess' favorite colors, so why not", Eva laughed, kissing Kate’s forehead swiftly.

She picked up the TV remote and put on some stupid sitcom, neither of them was paying attention to. A few minutes later Eva had already fallen asleep and Kate's gaze wandered through their apartment and came to a halt at the sight of her laptop. 

She remembered the Skype chat with Chess' she had spent so much time in, whenever she simply needed to and looked at the puppy sleeping peacefully. Her gaze wandered back to her laptop.

Kate swallowed hard and nodded a little as if to reassure herself of her memories. 

_"We're going to adopt a puppy. And we're going to be the best friends and move in together", they promised each other. They hugged and grinned, already picturing their future. "We will always be best friends." _

"This one's for you, Chess", Kate murmured, looking at the pup. She looked up again. "She's yours as well", she whispered. 

With that, she kissed Eva's hand, which was easily lying in hers. She settled against her, and let go of a breath, cuddling into her. The alarm, that would rip her out of the peaceful bubble she was in, was forgotten.

From that day on, Chess stayed with her all the time.

**Author's Note:**

> HUGE thanks to @khowrds on tumblr (@lovurhs on here), many things in here are ideas she had! She's awesome, go follow her!
> 
> So, yeah, I'm back with a oneshot, yay! Fun Fact: A few things in here will also appear in the next huge fic I'm writing so look out for that if you want to! But until then: Thank you SO much for reading and until the next time!


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